<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Hi Rick,</div><div>As Don says, for the leadless ICs with a central pad you will need a heat plate to raise the temperature of the board and a hot air tool (one designed for the job, not a paint remover unless you are really brave!) for making the joints. This is how my board was done. Solder paste wasn't needed, just normal tinning of the pads plus a little extra for the central pads. You need to see them drop and float on their pads. The leaded components can be soldered with a decent quality fine tipped iron and some sort of magnifier, I used a microscope.</div><div>In terms of assembly sequence, I started with the linear regulators and tested them. Then I built up the dc-dc converter and tested that. Then the leadless ICs went down. Next the passives and leaded semiconductors, then the fpga and finally the connectors
etc. All rather tedious but worth it!</div><div>Well that was my method, it worked well. Hope that helps, any more questions, please ask.</div><div>73's,</div><div>Andrew G4XZL<br></div></div></body></html>